Joining the PCT:
The Qatari Cabinet has recently approved Qatar’s accession to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). This means that the Qatari authorities are now required to deposit the instrument of accession to WIPO. However, the Qatari authorities must first amend the law to include provisions related to national phase PCT applications and should complete the set up of Patent Office in order to receive patent applications. It is not known when will these changes occur but we will keep you updated in due course.
By way of background, the Patent Cooperation Treaty now has a total of 142 contracting member states. Contracting member states from our region include: Algeria, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, India, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
Joining the Arab Convention for the Protection of Copyright:
The Qatari Cabinet has recently approved the country’s accession to the Arab Convention for the Protection of Copyright. This Convention was ratified by the Conference of Arab Ministers of Cultural Affairs which was held in Baghdad in November 1981. The Arab Convention for the Protection of Copyright incorporates the same principles set out in the Berne Convention. More specifically, it contains a series of provisions determining the minimum copyright protection and requires its signatories to recognize the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries in the same way as it recognizes the copyright of its own nationals. It establishes also a system of equal treatment that internationalized copyright amongst signatories.
It is worth noting that the Arab countries that have joined the Arab Convention for the Protection of Copyright are the following: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Gaza, West Bank, Qatar, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Should you have any questions, or require any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@sabaip.com